Q: Must a President be "crazy" to be effective?

[Mugsy]

Last Sunday on ABC's "This Week", Sen. Ted Kennedy found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to give President Bush "credit" ("praise" even) for the new found "outbreak of Democratic reform in the Middle East", comparing Bush's success to Reagan's "defeat of Communism". On "Meet the Press", Repub Whip Mitch McConnell held up his finger in tribute to the ink-stained fingers of Iraqi's from the vote six weeks ago that has so far resulted in no significant transfer of power.

This is the argument the Right has been trying to make in the past few weeks, shifted into high gear by the protests in Lebanon to oust Syrian troops from their country: "Democracy is on the march in the Middle East".

But let's look at their examples:

o Millions of Iraqi's risked life and limb to vote in their country last January. Why? In the U.S., voter turnout is always low unless they have motivation to vote. What is the Iraqi motivation here? Democracy? Hardly. The few candidates that were actually able to speak to voters promised to kick the Americans out and return the job of rebuilding their country to Iraqi's.

o Libya hands over it's weapons (funny how Qaddafi's possession of WMD's snuck under Bush's radar w/o a word in the press). Obviously frightened by President Bush's willingness to use force at the drop of a hat, and after ten years of seeking to lift a crushing trade/aide embargo against his country, Qaddafi gave up his weapons (though I'm not satisfied he gave up everything) out of fear of attack.

o They point to election protests in Ukraine, but since the Ukraine was already a Democracy, and does not lie in the Middle East, I'm not sure how Bush's invasion of Iraq had any influence.

o Protests in Lebanon to oust Syria... just the images on TV alone look more like the rallies in the Ukraine than the election in Iraq. And the Lebanese motivation for wanting Syria to go? The assassination of their President, two years after the Iraq invasion. And the Syrian's aren't exactly high-tailing it out of Lebanon for fear of a U.S. reprisal. They are taking their dear sweet time.

When comparing Bush's Middle East policy to Reagan and the Soviets, The Russians were scared to death of Reagan. They genuinely believed he was nuts. He constantly confused memories of his own life with things he did in the movies. He called the Soviet Union "evil" and, with a rapidly escalating arms race, was pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Stuck in 1950's "McCarthy-ism", Reagan was on a crusade to defeat the "Ruskies", even joking about "bombing Russia in ten minutes" over the radio (unknowingly?) over an open mic.

Russia was forced to enter into a costly arms race that bankrupted the country. First, they had to let their protective "satellite nations"... like Yugoslavia and the Ukraine... go because they could no longer afford to support them. This opened up a way to allow East Germans to "go around the wall" by traveling hundreds of miles around to West Germany, soon making the Wall itself meaningless, and down it came.

Reagan "defeated" Communism because his opponents thought he was barking mad (to borrow a phrase from DU) enough to attack them without provocation, pushing the world into an unnecessary war.

And now we see it again, with a Middle-East that is frightened of a mad cowboy American President that will use force to "defeat evil" without provocation.

To borrow Senator Byrd's metaphor (for lack of a more obvious example), Hitler's madness brought the U.S, the U.K. and the Soviet Union together to defeat the Nazi's. Stalin was called "Uncle Joe" by the American Press, comparing him to "Uncle Sam". And the result? A Cold War that pushed two great nations deep into debt and to the brink of nuclear war. And Russia's President Putin is turning out to be as oppressive of Democracy as his KGB training would suggest.

Reagan's crusade to defeat Communism by aiding Afghan rebels gave us Osama bin Laden. The installation of the Shah in 1953 gave us Khomeini, the Iranian hostage crisis, decades of radical Islamic fundamentalism and a haven for terrorist, in a country on the verge of building a nuclear bomb.

Republicans love "quick fixes" and live for "short-term results" with no regard for future implications of their actions. They have proved themselves now to be the greatest promoters of "America as the worlds policemen" as ever seen... a label they attacked Democrats with for decades and demagogued with the most vocal contempt.

So is this where we are now? Must our President be frighteningly mad to be effective? Must the rest of the world fear the United State's insane President in order to precipitate short-term "positive" change?

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[unblock]

1. you give reagan too much credit

the soviet union's dramatic changes had nothing to do with reagan. reagan was just there to take credit for it, much as the rooster claims credit for the rising sun.

the soviet economy was bankrupt after 7 decades of overspending on militarism. reagan didn't invent the arms race, and the soviets had more than enough nukes for any scenario. their spending on the military didn't suddenly skyrocket in the '80s.

before reagan, all republicans insisted that capitalism was better than communism, and THAT is why communism will fail.

for some reason, republicans now would rather not give capitalism any credit for being better, nor communism for being worse. somehow, we're to believe that his "tear down this wall" speech did it all. damn, why didn't kennedy just say that when the wall went up in the first place?

[Mugsy]

3. Incorrect. Soviet Spending tripled.

I need a source on this, but I remember stats at the time saying Soviet defense spending "which had been a third of U.S. spending" was increased to nearly the same rate as U.S. defence spending under Reagan. That would be a tripling of their spending on defence, leaving little for their other expenditures.

[unblock]

4. that was american disinformation, used to sell "star wars"

they had to hype soviet miltary spending to justify their own spending.

i have an excellent source on the decline of the soviet union in the form of a relative who is was a soviet economist at the dia.

[Cocoa]

2. that was Nixon's theory

but it didn't win him the Vietnam war, it just killed hundreds of thousands more Asians than was necessary.

[aaronnyc]

5. very interesting question

I think that in some cases being perceived as crazy might be beneficial, however, in general we are better having a rational president.

Positive:
If another country thinks that our president is crazy they can no longer use rational standards in order to judge U.S. foreign policy. Thus, they can't simply do as they please, with the general understanding that the U.S. will not invade, because a war would not be in our national interest. Therefore, they are more willing to cave into the demands of a crazy president, in order to avoid war.

Essentially, a crazy president makes it nearly impossible for another country to call our bluff, when we discuss the possibility of military force.

Negative:

It ailienates our allies. While our crazy presidents are often well-liked in the U.S., the Europeans see them as just as they are: crazy.

It forces countries that we oppose to build up weaponry in defense of a possibile U.S. attack (see nuclear arms buildup in Iran and N. Korea).

The fact that they are not using a rational cost-benefit analysis for the U.S. entering a war often leads to the U.S. getting involved in wars which are highly detrimental to our country.

A crazy president serves as a rallying point for those whom hate the U.S., and it makes it easier for their ideas to gain widespread support when the icon of the U.S. is perceived as being a crazy cowboy.

A crazy president is more likely to cause wars. Wars are bad not only from the national interest standpoint cited above, but also, of course, from a humanitarian standpoint

I think that the negatives far outweigh the positives; this is quite evident by the fact that the United States has not only has been fighting wars for almost all of Bush's presidency, but we are also in a far more vulnerable position than we were when he started.

[Mugsy]

6. I'm glad you made those points.

That's much of the point I was making.

[Mugsy]

7. Massive anti-US pro-Syria protest in Lebanon today (3/8).

...pretty much proves the point. What is happening the the Middle-East today is a response to Bush's American imperialism, not out of any movement to be more like the U.S..

[shance]

8. State the positive change implemented.

There has been effectiveness with specific regards to "cause and effect", however the results have been disastrously negative on an international scale, some perhaps environmentally that will be categorized as irreversible in time.

There is positive and negative effectiveness. It's not relative. However insanity is pretty relative.

Craziness in leadership promotes more insanity, instability, insecurity, apathy, depression, rage, passive aggression, pain, suffering, irreversible damage. Craziness in leadership promotes mental illness, compartmentalization and many forms of denial within a society.

We have been going downhill because of the denial, entitlement and insanity from the Reagan years. There were no benefits from his total absence of any remotely qualified leadership.

It saddens me the ignorance of some Americans to assume the economic peril of the Soviet Union was one, caused by Ronald Reagans presidency , and two, that a country's economic ruin was a good thing. It was a terrible thing, especially for the Russians having to endure more pain and suffering. Keep in mind that suffering is a ripple effect that permeates in thousands of different ways worldwide.

[Mugsy]

9. Speaking of the Soviet Union...

> It saddens me the ignorance of some Americans to assume the
> economic peril of the Soviet Union was one,

Speaking of the Soviet Union, do you think that perhaps Putin is also displaying some of the "insane" tendencies, such as the "rescue attempt" last year of hostages in a Russian theater using gas that killed over 100 of the hostages as well as their abductors, was meant as an intensional signal to Chechnyan rebels that "this guy is nuts enough to kill his own people in order to win"?

[shance]

10. You won't get an argument from me there.

I think we are in agreement.